Dana's Christian Journey

musings of a thankful cancer survivor

Author: Dana

  • how?

    —

    Dana

    “How will this be?” asked Mary after she was told the Christ would live in her. “I am a virgin! How can a virgin have a baby?” “Nothing is impossible with God,” the angel replied.

    For a time, the salvation of the world hinged on a young Jewish girl bearing the Son of promise. The book of Revelation shows the strategy of the devil as he saw his coming destruction. “The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour the child the moment he was born.” (see Rev 12) Though God’s plan was not thwarted, we see there were spiritual battles beyond the earthly realm.

    “How will this be?” we ask as the mystery of God is revealed through the hands of the apostles: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”(Col. 1:27) “I am a sinner! How can the Holy One dwell in me?” “Nothing is impossible with God,” we must be reminded. The birth of Christ had less to do with Mary’s role than it did with the Holy Spirit’s. “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said” was the greatest response Mary could give. So it is with us.

    “I do not claim to understand, Lord, but I believe you have come to live in my heart. I die… You live… is this Your plan? Let me have Mary’s heart to believe you are able. Let me have Mary’s heart to surrender myself as Your servant. Let me have Your promise that as the devil tries to destroy what You are doing, You will complete what You have begun. May it be unto me as You will.”

    The defeated dragon despises the Seed of the Son. He could not succeed against the Anointed One so he concentrates on His offspring. His time is short, so his tactics are ruthless. “Do not let the Seed take root. Choke out… dry up… steal, kill, destroy the Word.” Such are the instructions the devil gives his servants.

    But we say, “The Lord is my strength, I shall not fear. It is not by my might nor by my power, but by His Spirit that I will be victorious. If He does not live in me, I can do nothing… but if He does live in me, there will be fruit. I will abide in Him… I will trust in Him… I will hope in Him… and I will be more than a conqueror. For no hardship or trouble or persecution or sickness or demon or anything else in all creation will be able separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

    Merry Christmas!

    Thank you for continued prayers for my friend, Joe. He has had a turn for the better the past couple of days. God hears the prayers of His children!

  • worshiper

    —

    Dana

    “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” (John 4:23)

    Read the ninth chapter of John to find such a worshiper. This is a story of grace… the story of all true worshipers. Though he was a familiar face, he was a nobody. Every day this blind man sat and begged as people occasionally theorized about the type of horrible sin that must have brought about his condition. But one day, Someone he didn’t know, put mud on his eyes and told him to go wash in a pool. When he did, he could see!

    The ensuing trouble must have confused this man with new sight, but having never had much, being kicked out of the synagogue might not have been too painful. Over and over he told his story and over and over he was told his Healer had broken God’s rules. But no argument could overcome the truth. “He has to be good! I tell you, I’ve been blind all my life, but now I see! I say He’s from God!” For such a belief, he was ousted.

    Upon hearing what happened to the poor man, Jesus searched him out to give a gift greater than sight. He gave Himself! “Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ ‘Who is he, sir?’ the man asked. ‘Tell me so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said, ‘You have now seen him, in fact, he is the one talking with you.’ Then the man said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and worshiped him.”

    Notice Jesus did not say, “Do you want to say thanks to the One who healed you?” Jesus was revealing a grander picture. “Do you want to see the One everyone is longing to see?” When the man believed in the Son of Man, he worshiped.

    One day everyone will see the Son of Man, and all will bow confessing Him King. But what about today? I thank him for my health, but that does not make Him King. He deserves my worship whether I stay free of cancer or not. This week, my dear friend fights for his life in ICU. Is Jesus still King? My friend, a true worshiper, would say, “He can give or take away… blessed be the Name of the Lord.” Will I?

    Lord Jesus, may we be the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

    Joe McReynolds and his family would appreciate prayer at this time. Joe has been in the hospital with heart difficulty. After numerous tests and various theories, doctors think a virus has impacted his heart. He also has battled pneumonia. Please pray for Joe. In the same week, Matt McReynolds, one of Joe and Sybil’s sons, had major eye surgery for a torn retina. Please pray for swift healing to take place. Thank you!

  • fish

    —

    Dana

    Several years ago, when my mom yelled, “It’s a miracle!” I was sceptical, as most are when they hear such a proclamation. But God had revealed Himself to my children while fishing on other occasions, so I listened to the story. It started when our nine-year-old daughter lost a fish. Hearing Kinsey sobbing, my dad laid his favorite fishing pole on the dock to console his granddaughter. A minute later, his pole was scooting across the wooden planks into the lake. Perhaps what happened next would not fit the technical definition of a miracle, but when I heard what preceded the “improbable catch”, I agreed with my mom’s assessment. My dad had given up hope of ever seeing his pole again so he became everyone’s assistant. In a little while, Kinsey thought she had another bite, but when she reeled in the hook, there was no fish. Instead, she had caught a fishing line. As my dad pulled in one side of the line, there was a good-sized catfish. When he pulled in the other side, he discovered his fishing pole. The hidden part of the story was that on the other end of the dock, Kinsey’s eleven-year-old brother, Taylor, had been praying, “Lord, please help Peepaw get his fishing pole back.”

    Perhaps some wouldn’t have proclaimed it a miracle that a school of fish swam into the lowered net of the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, but when we know what preceded the catch, we realize God was in the picture. Jesus “called it” before it happened! “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” They found 153 to be exact. If they had carried a camera fishing, as Taylor does these days, I’ll bet the disciples would have taken a picture.

    In 1981, some missionaries did have a camera and video-taped a miraculous catch of fish… I’ve seen the film! Don Stephens and his wife, Deyon, led a team of 175 young people to Athens, Greece to work on a newly purchased “mercy ship” that Youth With A Mission hoped to send all over the world. The ship was going to require an incredible amount of work to become seaworthy, but the young volunteers were up to the task. While many worked on the ship, the rest of the team went ashore to help and encourage victims of a recent earthquake. As the team labored, Don felt it would be pleasing to the Lord to enter a period of fasting and prayer. For forty days the missionaries scheduled groups to fast and pray for God’s guidance and for a great harvest for the Kingdom. As they approached the end of the forty days, some interesting things started happening. One day, 12 medium-sized fish jumped out of the water into a shallow tidal pool at the feet of one of the missionaries. He took them to the rest of the team and shared his strange story. A few days later, a large tuna jumped out of the ocean. Those not on “fasting duty” enjoyed some unexpected seafood. A few days later, a young lady was sitting on the rocks by the ocean, spending time with the Lord, when fish started jumping all over the place. She gathered 210 fish and some local Greek families collected over twice that number. But the greatest day was captured on video. Beginning at 8:00 in the morning, fish started jumping out of the ocean onto the land. The young people ran to get containers and spent forty-five minutes gathering fish… 8,301 of them. The local Greeks had never seen anything like it. Their conclusion: “God is with these people!”

    God is with His children! He’s not just with us when prayers are answered in spectacular ways or when He surprises us with His wonders. He is with us always. In the good times and the bad. In the times of harvest and in the times of want. In the times of light and in the times of darkness. But sometimes… often when a child-like prayer is lifted in faith, He fills our net with more than we can carry. How it must tickle the Father to see a child-like response!

    “Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter. ‘It is the Lord!’ As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, ‘It is the Lord,’ he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.” John 21:7

    HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

  • opposite

    —

    Dana

    “God always works in the opposite spirit as our enemy”, my friend shared last week as he visited our home. He and his wife have been missionaries in Jerusalem for fifteen years. In the summer of 2000 we visited them. Shortly after our departure, this city, quite acquainted with violence, erupted. Despite such dangerous circumstances, these friends and other missionaries decided to remain in Jerusalem. They have been able to demonstrate love in the midst of hate, generosity in the midst of selfishness, and peace in the midst of war. Such is God’s strategy.

    God calls His children to replace natural fear with bold faith that enables “normal” men and women to be His witnesses… even while the world around them is falling apart. In 1947, another missionary who had lived in Jerusalem fifteen years had to make a decision. Hannah Hurnard was one of only a handful of Christian workers who remained in the region as war broke out. Even through the Siege of Jerusalem in 1948, Hannah was able to show Jews and Arabs the loving Hand of a God who tells His “little flock” to “fear not”.

    Through her experiences, God allowed Hannah to write HINDS’ FEET ON HIGH PLACES, a brilliant allegory of a Christian’s journey through all kinds of trials to reach the Father’s heights of joy, love, and victory. Hannah admitted the main character of the book reflected many of her struggles as a young person who was constantly tormented with all types of fears. But Much-Afraid met the Good Shepherd who promised that He could turn her greatest weaknesses into something altogether opposite. The Good Shepherd gave Much-Afraid two companions on her journey to the High Places. Sorrow and Suffering walked with her through danger and difficulty. At journey’s end, the Good Shepherd’s promise was fulfilled and a transformed follower with a new name wondered if those she left behind could also be rescued:

    “Can nothing be done for them down there in the Valley? Must my Aunt Dismal be left unhelped, and poor Spiteful and Gloomy too?… If the Shepherd could deliver me from all my fears and sins, couldn’t he deliver them from all the things which torment them?”

    “Yes” said Joy (who had been Sorrow). “If he can turn Sorrow into Joy, Suffering into Peace, and Much-Afraid into Grace and Glory, how can we doubt that he could change Pride and Bitterness and Resentment and Self-Pity too, if they would but yield to him and follow him?”

    We have good news to share.

    “I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.” Jeremiah 31:13

    “The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go to the heights.” Habakkuk 3:19

  • consumed

    —

    Dana

    In SHADOW OF THE ALMIGHTY, Elisabeth Elliot chronicled the life of her late husband. From his youth in Oregon to his wrestling days at Wheaton College to his death with four other missionaries in the jungle of Ecuador at the hands of the Auca Indians, Jim was a sold-out believer. In 1948, six years before his death, he penned these words in his journal: “God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.”

    Jim Elliot died at the age of twenty-eight; David Brainerd died at the age of twenty-nine… both were abandoned to God. We are encouraged by these heroes, but how many saints will never have a book written about them? John described a strange scene in Heaven: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.” (Rev. 6:9-11) Does God, “a consuming fire”, waste His children?

    Is it good to be consumed by God? If I seek His kingdom first and His righteousness, will it be worth it in the end? If we could only hear from the “great cloud of witnesses” that has gone before! Would they tell us to hold back or would they tell us to press on? Would they tell us Jesus’ promises are false or would they tell us that even He couldn’t fully describe the joy to come? Would they council us to give less or encourage us to give more? Would they say “be careful” or would they say “be consumed”?

    Would Jim Elliot retract his most famous journal entry or would he say “It is true!”? – “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

    “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:39

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